Bottle Babies

ABOUT THE PHOTO(S):
Natalie and her friend NEVER took bottles as babies, and yet now that they are "older" and saw their baby friend taking a bottle OF COURSE they had to have one too! They were making us laugh so hard walking around and tipping back their bottles!!

LAYOUT DESIGN:
I was going to start this layout completely differently, based on a sketch template from the Simple Scrapper, but I ended up changing it up after I really wanted to use that piece of paper from this month's The Underground kit by Studio Calico. So really that piece of paper is what drove the design.

MY PROCESS/PRODUCTS USED:
I cut along the parts of the paper where a "folder" would open and added lots of bits from Maggie Holmes' vellum die cuts. I used white Gouache paint (think: thick watercolor paint) to brush over the words on the book paper so I could use that space for journaling. It looks a bit messier than I would've liked but I didn't feel like getting out my paint stuff again (think: lazy). It's sort of a mishmash of supplies but a fun one!

Loved

I guess this layout is proof that Natalie is my first child. She gets her picture taken just for looking cute while laying on the floor. Then she gets a whole page scrapped with said picture!

Last night Chris went out to get me my favorite snack: Lays brand potato chips & Helluva Good french onion dip! While he was out, I started this layout and finished it not long after he got home - so it was just a very quick layout (my favorite kind)!

I trimmed a white piece of card stock 4" wide and added it along the side to break up the pretty, but busy floral pattern on the paper. I used the Office Hours kit by Studio Calico to complete this layout, except the edge of the gold doily from my stash... sadly I actually pulled that edge piece out of the (top of my) scrap garbage can, leftover from my previous project. Wow, that was so Chris-esque of me haha :)

I knew I wanted to use those gold labels by Maggie Holmes' so incorporated those along the edge instead of trying to do some border between the pieces of paper. I adhered those little plastic floral pieces with my Martha Stewart glue pen, and added the little digital label by Hello Forever that I printed and cut at home. As a side note, I printed this photo from my phone to my printer wirelessly from bed one day... I love how lazy technology lets you be haha!

December Daily Day 18

Last night after I got Natalie down for the night, I was so tired so I definitely wanted to keep this spread as simple and quick as possible and not worry about adding a bunch of embellishments.

For the left side I let the premade cards do all my decorating for me, and just added a couple pieces. Chris took a picture of me and Natalie next to our little LED tabletop tree, as she's wearing her Thanksgiving day bib haha!

The pics for the right side were messaged to me while I was working - Natalie's crying in her baby carrier, then asleep in her car seat with my hoodie haha!

For most of the rest of the album, I used more of the filler cards - and now I'm really glad I did that more towards the end. It seems like the beginning of the month it's easier to decorate and create than towards the end as you're running out of ideas or sleep! I am def going to remember to do this next year - use more of the cards towards the end of the month!

December Daily Day 17

Just more pics of Natalie haha, same old same old, but never gets old to me!! Yesterday I took her to the Doctor for her 4 month checkup and wow, she is up to 17lbs 2oz and 25.75 inches long!! That's huge for a 4 month old, she is in the 91st and 96th percentiles for height and weight respectively - weight I figured because she is really getting heavy to always be carrying around!

For the left side I knew I wanted to have white against the woodgrain background paper in some way. So I stamped with an Ali Edwards stamp from last year's Studio Calico December Daily kit, but the white was a bit faded so I went over it with my Uniball Signo Gel pen then drew a little border around the picture! I added some bits to the left and a quick little banner up top.

On the right side I cut some gold glitter tape so it wasn't so thick and added to the top two cards. I added some little stamps to each card that came in the Blue Note Studio Calico kit this month! Those are so cute! And of course my trusty old gold clip with the number 17 to showcase that I've made it 17 days in without getting behind yet haha!

Even though I have a baby now so one would think I wouldn't have as much time to fiddle with this album, but it also means I'm not doing anything after she goes to bed. I can't ever leave the house without her since she doesn't take a bottle and still nurses every 2 hours, which is also partly why we can't get a babysitter and leave, and also she is so stranger danger crazy... so what else is there to do anyway now that Survivor on TV is over? Haha!

December Daily Day 16

Yesterday, my mother-in-law came over to help with Natalie after work so I could get some work done and Chris could cook us dinner! Unfortunately, Natalie still has major stranger danger (say that 3 times fast) and really only lets me or Chris hold her! But I got a nice photo of GG helping Chris with the prep work! We just joined emeals.com a couple weeks ago, and so far we are LOVING it! They do the meal planning for you - basically sending you 7 dinner recipes per week, along with an organized grocery list. But that's not all, you can choose your type of meal plan, for example we chose "Mediterranean" but you can also select from Clean Eating, Paleo, Simple Gourmet, and a ton more. The printable grocery lists also tell you which number meal they go with in case you don't want to buy for all the meals, or you can download the free app to your mobile device and click "skip meal" to adjust the grocery list and then just look at your phone while you're at the store! It takes a lot of time to do meal planning and shopping - so for the nominal fee ($5/month) we find this very worth it!! Chris has been great at doing the shopping, cooking AND cleaning for us while I just have to watch/feed Natalie!! It's a win-win for both of us! I always say, I am in charge of Natalie and he is in charge of me :)

Anyway, so I am loving how easy it is to have pre-decorated cards and then just dress them up a bit! So the left side was very easy and came together quickly - I had already cut out the die cut in the lower left so all I really did was add the gold "16" clip and two gold glitter splotch stickers to the Blessings card, then some washi cut off at the bottom and journaling to the other card!

For the right side I knew I wanted to do layering of some sort, but as it is not natural for me to do, I used Maggie Holmes' Day 7 from the 25 Days class I am taking over at Studio Calico as my inspiration! She is so good at adding little bits and pieces and creating such a layered, ephemeral look! Mine isn't nearly as good but for me, this turned out really great - plus I surprised myself by being able to incorporate gold AND dark glittery/gray together in one spread.

So far so good with December Daily - just 9 days left, I can't believe it! Also, as a side note - I truly am so blessed this Christmas season! I have so much to be thankful for and so many of my prayers have been answered, I can't even count! Hope you all have a blessed Christmas season as well!

December Daily Foundation Pages Part 2 (Days 1-8)

OK so this second part of preparing my December Daily pages is taking me a lot longer, but mostly because I am back at work now and not really scrapping during the week anymore! Bummer! I need to take more maternity leaves :)

Anyway, slowly I am making my way through this album, trying to prepare as much as possible before December actually hits! I went through and started my foundation pages here, but since then I already changed a few things. I signed up for the 25 Days class with Maggie Holmes from Studio Calico and I bought some of the Holly Jolly collection from In A Creative Bubble by Geralyn Sy. So I ordered all my digital items from the class, from the shoppe, and from the original DD kit online from OfficeMax Impress Printing Services! I ordered them to be printed on bright white 80# cover stock - so they'd turn out brighter than if I printed at home, and also have a slight shine to them. The files printed and turned out great!

So after I received all these new cards, I went through the album again and swapped out some of the papers I had cut out with the new cards. Then I finally got started for real. Keep in mind, I've decided not to care if my pictures will match - theme or colors! I will keep it holiday-ish and figure if worse comes to worst, I will print my pic some days in black & white or sepia to match!

Here's my cover! I kept it simple and knew I wanted to use those gold letter stickers - I have an extra theme since this is my daughter's first Christmas! I'm sure she will be in a majority of the pictures (why else would you have a kid hehe)!

The only day of the season that I sort of know what we will be doing is Day 1 - I want to always pick out our tree! Except this year, we might not have room for a tree... but even if it means getting the LED tabletop tree from the basement, that will be the theme haha! I used the wood veneer trees from last year's kit (I cheated already and used other stash)!

This Day 2 page came together last out of all these pages so far - I kept going back to it, and finally filled one of the pockets with that white brick wall paper from Studio Calico's latest Cuppa kit! I used the Silhouette to make some cuts and also used some Ali Edwards stamps I purchased from Technique Tuesday:

Day 3 sort of stumped me too, so I'm not crazy about it, but that's ok!

For Day 4 I used a bow from the Printshop collection at Studio Calico, to add some much-needed dimension!

Day 5 is the first page I really love! I finally used one of those gold number chipboard clips and incorporated some gold POW paper to cut out a reindeer head... what I didn't plan on was using that negative like that - I originally was planning to use it for a border around a square 4x4 pic but if I don't have one, then I sort of like just the cut by itself! I would just need to decorate a little more but it works!

I kept day 6 much simpler, and just added that black glittery star from a pack of star stickers I bought at Target - I think they were from American Crafts, part of a Halloween collection!

For day 7, I had some really shiny gold paper I had bought awhile back from one of the LSS (Local Scrapbook Stores) and cut out that ornament and punched some circles to match the gold number again!

And finally for day 8, I got some inspiration from Maggie's foundation pages in her 25 days class and added some sequins and wood veneer 8!

Hopefully I'll get some more days done before December hits and post them, but wanted to get these up as soon as I could! Thanks for stopping by!!

December Daily Finished!!

Woohoo, I finally finished December Daily 2012!! I know it's October 1st, 2013... but... well... um... I never completed my December Daily and thought it would never happen. But then Studio Calico posted some sneaks of their upcoming December Daily kit with Ali Edwards for this year and I really like that it's going back to a bigger size, so that was the motivation for me to finish up DD from last year so I wouldn't feel so guilty about pre-ordering this year's kit!! I had finished up to Day 12, but had stopped and then thought it wasn't going to get finished, but the long break from it actually helped me get some pages done quickly and over the past couple weeks I was able to finish it out! Here are my pages!


Day 13: I found some scraps of paper and stopped worrying about finding the "perfect" use for that gold polkadot vellum paper, so I just kept it simple and moved on.

Day 14: Not too holiday-ish but I used the postcard from the Studio Calico journal boxes and some airmail twine since Chris' coat had blue and red to match and he came home for lunch that day to take a walk with me!

Day 15: I had seen one of Ali's pages I think it was that had the diagonal red lettering like that, so I used it for my title - this was me and my friend scrapping December Daily haha!

Day 16: I had also seen somebody use those Studio Calico diamond stickers like this as well and scraplifted the idea. I decided to keep my album holiday-themed in appearance even for non-holiday themed photos!

Day 17: Another quick layout - I had decided if I was going to finish this by the end of September (which I would have if Natalie wasn't sick and kept me busy all day yesterday), then I would just have to keep these pages simple!

Day 18: I looked back to my 25 Days class pdf's and saw Kinsey Wilson had a layout where she used that washi tape diagonal, so I did the same, but added in the sparkly silver washi since it sort of matched my new/used car!

Day 19: Just some simple stamping and embossing here

Day 20: I had printed out some of the class printable labels and decided to stamp on them and add some to the journal box along with some of those enamel dots - simple!

Day 21: Again just simple, did some stamping and added some stickers and called it a day!

Day 22: My least favorite but I got it done - I cut the note card from my Silhouette

Day 23: Decided to also embellish the photo a little too - what a difference that makes!

Day 24: I used the multi print feature (not sure what it's called exactly) on my Canon Selphy CP800 and decided to mimic the layout on the opposite page! I love how it turned out and it was so simple too!

Day 25: My only use of a transparency, I had cut that Dec 25 glittery piece with my Silhouette last year! I bought it from the Silhouette online store with the intention to use it specifically like this... I just didn't know I wouldn't get to it for another 10 months!

So there it is!! 2012 is completed and I'm ready to do this year's and maybe even finish it before October 1, 2014!! Haha, no promises though!

Mrs. Giraffe and me

Oh how small our baby was back then... 5 weeks ago haha! But seriously, she was so small and cute and still liked to be swaddled! Her best friend was the Sophie giraffe, that we renamed Mrs. Giraffe and sang a song about Mrs. Giraffe to soothe Natalie when she was upset!

I was going to use watercolors but ended up pulling out a good old box of crayons for this one!

I used the doily, acrylic flowers, and stickers from the More Happy Little Moments class kit (Maggie Holmes' class kit) and another layout finished fairly quick!

Monkey Face

So today my daughter is sick (me too) and was feeding every hour... I had about 10-15 minute intervals when she was asleep to scrap so I worked on this layout in my "More Happy Little Moments" book! It is strange to scrap 10 minutes at a time!!

Anyway I printed this pic that I put on Instagram of our little monkey face girl!

I stamped the cameras on one side and added washi tape to the other (pretty obvious), added some paper from the class kit and some other random bits and called it a day!

Joy Ride

A few months ago I took the class "More Happy Little Moments" with Maggie Holmes over at Studio Calico. I knew I would want to make a book for my daughter, but since I hadn't had her yet, I held off on starting the book (other than the cover). I've finally decided that I'm going to put Instagram snapshots and any extra photos that won't make it into a 12x12 layout, into this book! Here's a couple pages I worked on today of an Instagram shot of Natalie in her car seat!

I cut the car from the Silhouette, which is an Amy Tangerine cut file from the Silhouette Online store. I used vellum paper and just outlined it with pen to show up a little better. I also used her Thickers from her Cut & Paste line for the title.

I punched some pinking circles from the right side of the page, and went around each one with some watercolors to make the shape show up better. I backed with some paper that came in the More Happy Little Moments kit, and added some digital diecuts from Hello Forever that also came in the kit. Finally, I just added a bunch of rub-ons to fill the spaces!

Erie Canal

My husband Chris is sort of like my personal boredom-fixer and always finds interesting and new things for us to do or try! We had the 5th of July off from work last summer, so he found for us the information to sign up for the Sam Patch Packet boat tour on the Erie Canal! We were like tourists in our own hometown, it was so much fun and very interesting! I finished this layout last night, the 4th layout of the day - the most I've ever completed at home in one day!!

I used the Neverland kit by Studio Calico and just LOVE that Maggie Holmes sky background paper - actually all the paper from her Crate Paper line is just beautiful!

I just picked some papers for the pinked circles and a few washi tapes and then it was just a matter of putting the layout together. The sewing is what took the majority of the time, otherwise this one was a quick one!

Love this place!

Oh man, I still love it, but I needed a break from December Daily and 4x6 small scrapping! After going through the Creative team's latest galleries over at Studio Calico, I felt so inspired to get back to scrapping a 12x12 layout! So I did!!

I used Studio Calico's August kit, Summer of '69, to complete the layout, mostly so it would match a page I did awhile back with the same kit. When I saw this layout by Maggie Holmes, I also remembered this layout also by Maggie and used both for the inspiration for my page, especially for those banners!

I bought the palm tree/beach chair/sand cut from the Silhouette online store, added some extra strips of paper, a bit of washi tape, and some journaling to complete the layout.

I am so happy I got to scrap a 12x12 and also a non-wintery theme page! Maybe I should scrap all summer/vacation pics in winter and all winter in summer? :)